Whether Sonoko Ogata’s Birth Day is filled with happiness or sadness depends on your perspective

Sonoko Ogata’s Birth Day tells the story of a young man named Greg who finds that he can’t relate to his friends’ lives. Photo: Screenshot

A birthday can be filled with happiness or sadness depending on your perspective, but if you’re someone constantly looking for a reason to continue living it can be one of the most difficult days of the year.

Existence itself is part of nature, said Sonoko Ogata the director of Birth Day at a film screening in Toronto. Existing is something that the main character is constantly struggling with because of a traumatic event during his childhood.

Ogata brings the audience into a world where people view society through different perspectives although all through the same lens.

It’s a lens that society calls “normal”.

In Birth Day, Greg is portrayed by Brain Walters who plays a drug addict whose experiences have distanced him from the people in his life. The movies starts with Greg walking around in a forest recalling the voices from stories he had once heard.

As he walks through the forest the audience follows him on his countdown and is brought to his current life inside of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre. As the movie progresses the viewer follows him as he goes out into the “real world” to have a job interview and interact with old friends as part of his recovery.

Greg has been struggling his whole life to live within the confines of normality since he was a young child. He struggles to follow what society says is correct as he does not want to conform.

As he’s about to leave the drug rehabilitation program, he finds he can no longer understand his friend Alex (Frank Angelini) who used to be in the same situation as him, but decided to change his life and reform.

But who says that Alex’s way is theright way?

“People [who suffer from mental illnesses] might tell the truth right and see it [the world] right but society’s standard decided they are losers and have to conform,” Ogata said in an interview with Nikkei Voice.

Yokohama-born actor Brian Walters plays Greg who is about to leave a drug rehabilitation clinic and decides to meet up with his old friends.

Ogata who is from Kobe, Japan knows that following the norm is very important in Japanese society. In the film Greg’s friend Alex was a drug addict, but he eventually cleaned up his act unlike Greg. Ogata is able to show the difference between the two societies. In Japan “there are no second chances,” but in places like Canada and America it is easier to start over, she said.

Although we are told to find a good job, have children, etc, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are the normal ones because we decide to follow what society thinks is the norm.

The message Ogata’s film conveys is that people who suffer from mental illness,are borderline mentally ill, or different are seen as outsiders by the people that create the concept of an acceptable society. Ogata knows the stigma surrounding mental illness as she used her personal experience.

Ogata said existing itself is a natural thing, but humans have made society such so complex. She thinks that people should not be cast aside if they decide “not join [society] and find their own way.”

The 80 min film was able to convey that message although Ogata said, “I feel like I could only express some of what I wanted to say.”

In Birth Day Brian Walters does a great job of showing the audience how it feels to be an outsider. Never holding back on how he feels he goes through life doing what he feels is normal.

He’s very honest with people about his feelings, but runs away when he feels as though he is not being accepted. With Greg’s world constantly being dark and gloomy, it is easy to sympathize with how he feels. Leaving us to wonder what happens when Greg finishes the countdown he has been having throughout life.

Is there life after zero?

To the everyday movie goer who goes to the movies to escape reality this leaves you with something more. It brings the viewer on a journey. One that constantly leaves the viewer wanting to know what happens next and why the traumatic event made it difficult for Greg to connect with others.

A simple movie by no means, the story takes us on the journey that is Greg’s life and teaches people to reflect on what we really think of society and what is considered the norm.

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Written by Asha Walker

5 Comments

Birth Day is a movie that requires you to think. Each time you watched it, you gained a little bit more from the story and your perspective may also changed. Greg was once a successful writer and his works were still memorable after years. Unfortunately, he could never live a normal life again after the accident that happened when he was a child. The loneliness and emptiness stayed with him no matter how hard he tried to strive.

In the real world, we all have wounds that are not mendable. We all struggle to live a better life and be liked by others. But living a life that the society agrees does not always make us a happier person. Grey chose to die to end his struggle.

Is it wrong to deviate from what the majority thinks? Did the “normal” people all went through what Grey went through? Not everybody is lucky enough to live a happy life. As Grey count down to zero, it reminded him of how good it is to be able to just walk on the grass and breath the air. Normal people may have just taken these simple things as granted.

Birth Day was riveting and surreal. Brian Walters portrayal of Greg was perfectly done. As viewers see Greg meet up with old friends after leaving a drug rehabilitation clinic, we see things as a simple black and white. Yet, Birth Day sheds light on the reality that the world is more than right versus wrong; black versus white. Viewers start to see the difficulties that Greg faces when he goes back to his “real” life after the clinic and that his addiction is a multi-faceted mental illness. The theme was beautifully portrayed in the cinematography. Each scene was wonderfully done and magical. The film highlights the surreal world that Greg was living in and leaves the viewer absolutely riveted.

The movie brings out a societal ill that has been traditionally “swept under the rug”. Japan’s homogenous society, steep in tradition, is reluctant to deal with such issues. The main character Greg is push to the point of an existential threat by society’s callous treatment of the mentally ill. But do we really want to totally eliminate such a population? There is a great temptation in our scientific community to purify the gene pool. Do we want to be homogenized like we do with milk? Isn’t biodiversity essential to the survival of a species? Have we considered the unintended consequences? Aren’t we all carriers of some sort of undesirable genes? It’s all part of the human experience. Something that enriches rather than take away. What is normal? Take the 1975 Movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, the patients as a group defined what is “normal” and the head nurse was really the abnormal one. Many brilliant works of the 20th century were done by people under the influence (outside their normal state of mind).

Bravo to Ms. Ogata for bring this topic to light. Perhaps this movie will serve as a keystone for her future works.

This movie reminds me of the classic song by the Doors “People are Strange”. Thank you Ms. Ogata for such a wonderful depiction. Nonconformist such as the main character Greg would not only be ostracized in an insular society such as Japan, but all society in general. Desenters and nonconformists are outcast whether on a friendship, group, religious, political, social economic level. Liar or outlier, I know which one I rather deal with.